Tourism spending keeps climbing

Extended summer and F.A.W.C! events contribute to estimated $639m outlaid by visitors to Bay in past year

Hawke’s Bay’s Indian Summer and an extended Winter F.A.W.C! (Food and Wine Classic) event are being cited as reasons behind a big jump in the value of tourism last month.

The latest Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) show tourism spending for Hawke’s Bay is estimated to be $639 million for the year to June 2018, up 5 per cent compared with the year to June 2017.

MBIE manager of sector trends Mark Gordon says that of this tourism spend in the year to June 2018, international visitors spent $169m (up 10 per cent compared with the year to June 2017), and domestic tourists spent $470m (up 3 per cent) in that period.

“When it comes to the monthly expenditure, tourism spend in Hawke’s Bay for the month of June 2018 is up 5 per cent compared with the month of June 2017,” says Mr Gordon.

Hawke’s Bay Tourism general manager Annie Dundas said she was particularly thrilled to see a rise in tourism spending for the month.

“We are actually really thrilled that the result is up overall for June because we thought June [and July coming] would have been affected a bit without a Lions tour this year.

“So having a positive result is extra good.”

Dundas said an extended F.A.W.C! event, which included an edible fashion show and also coincided with Queen’s Birthday Weekend, played a significant part.

“We had a much bigger programme and all our F.A.W.C! figures were up. We did 4500 tickets this year, which was up on last year for the events that were ticketed.”

Ticket sales through Hawke’s Bay Tourism alone hit about $300,000, which was also up on last year, she said.

MBIE figures also show, last month, tourism spend